Thirst for Reverence

From the beginning of our marriage, finding a church that seemed right was a struggle. We visited church after church and spent significant time in prayer on the issue. This was not what we had planned. I had always expected to quickly settle down in the “perfect church” home, but we just could not find it. At times, we wondered whether we were just being too picky. Kimberly had been raised in a denomination very similar to the Nazarene Church in which I was raised, but we never could discover a church home where we both felt a continued sense of belonging or purpose. For me, the issue of reverence became more and more important. I just could not accept a church service that came across more as entertainment than worship. From Lutheran and Baptist to Episcopal, we visited more denominations than we could count. After years of searching, we discovered the Episcopal Church in Salem, Oregon. The minister at that time was a gifted preacher, and we felt that perhaps we had finally found where we belonged. We soon became involved in various ministries through the church. All was proceeding very well until the Episcopal Church of the USA decided to ordain an openly gay man as bishop. The Episcopal Church took this low road in August of 2003, and we soon realized that we could not stay within a denomination that took this grievous misstep. It made an especially deep impression when the church leadership asserted that the Holy Spirit had led them to this decision. Many of us came to a different conclusion.

So, much to our frustration, our “church shopping” began anew. Then, it happened. One morning we just decided to attend a Catholic Mass. We had been driving past this particular Church in our neighborhood for years, but we had never taken the time to visit. The plan was to just to make a quick stop, then continue our church quest. To our surprise, however, we were blown away by the Mass. It was beautiful, and the message from the priest was powerful and filled with deep meaning for us. We weren’t quite ready to admit that this was where we belonged, however, so after attending an early Mass, we took the kids in tow and visited a Free Methodist service across town. After just having attended the beautiful Mass, the anti-Catholic sermon there made me all but storm out of the church. My wife recalls sitting on our back porch later that day and being so miserable that the thought of starting her own church actually passed through her mind. She was stunned when she realized how destructive this line of thinking could have been. Soon, we both began to seriously consider converting to the Catholic Church.

The first part of our spiritual journey was all about being led to the Catholic Church. The next part of our spiritual awakening concerned more of a deep study of Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the writings of the Church Fathers. My father-in-law, John Collier, also was a major help to us at this point. John Collier is the fine artist and sculptor who created the Catholic Memorial at Ground Zero in New York City. John was able to answer many of our questions and concerns regarding the Catholic Church. When a question stumped him, he would even put us into contact with priests or others who could answer our many concerns. After a time, we were surprised to realize that all of our stumbling blocks had been removed, and that many issues which we thought were insurmountable turned out to be simple differences in vocabulary or new perspectives. Whether through John, or our RCIA program, God encircled us with knowledgeable people to answer those troubling questions. I’d like to address six areas now which were pivotal in my acceptance of the Catholic Church as the one and true Church established by Jesus Christ and entrusted to the first Pope, Saint Peter. Some were more of an initial hurdle than others, but they all held important meaning along our journey.

First, Sola Scriptura is pretty easily sent on its way. Do we accept that each person must interpret every Scripture passage on his own? This seemed to be sending our Episcopalian friends toward moral entropy. How can the Holy Spirit be guiding different churches in opposite interpretative directions regarding identical Scripture passages? We felt there must be an authority somewhere to assist church members in understanding the Bible, because the moral anchors were certainly breaking loose within many Protestant denominations.

Second, with the Anglican adoption of birth control at the Lambeth Conference in 1930 and the brief Protestant love affair with eugenics, we are left with Protestant denominations that recognize abortion as a grave sin, but they don't see the moral similarity between birth control and abortion. Every other denomination is blown by the winds of societal and cultural change. Granted, some great Evangelical thinkers such as Amy Laura Hall are starting to ask the tough questions, but where is the consistency of reason and truth most readily found in regards to the Culture of Death, which is tearing our world apart—spiritually, morally, and demographically?

Third, non-Catholics frequently misunderstand and misconstrue the value and purpose of our Pope. As we learned, Catholics don’t believe that everything the Pope utters is infallible. We are not bound, for example, to follow his personal preferences. Only when the Pope speaks "ex cathedra" are his statements taken as infallible by the Catholic Church, and this has only been used two or three times in the life of the Church. Furthermore, this does not represent a trust in the Pope so much as it represents a trust that God won’t permit His Church to fall into error. More and more Protestant churches appear to be heading straight for moral relativism as gravely warned against by the great Anglican writer C.S. Lewis.

Fourth, the Bible calls us repeatedly to unity. Did we have sufficient reason to stay apart from the Catholic Church? How is it preferred that the mystical body of Christ be divided so many thousands of times in the different denominations of the day? The Protestant churches seem like injured cells endlessly dividing and replicating themselves. This is precisely what Saint Paul was warning Christians to avoid, in order that we might reflect Christian unity to the world. We should all consider ourselves members of a broken family, and its time we came back together.

Fifth, before joining the Catholic Church, we were the first to always insist upon a literal interpretation of Scripture, but we balked at applying a literal interpretation to John 6, which describes the Eucharist as the actual body and blood of Christ. It seems that the disciples were deeply troubled by our Lord’s words. If it were a symbol alone, it would not have been a challenging teaching at all, and Jesus would have clarified His meaning to the disciples. In fact, if His followers had so badly misunderstood, it would have been unlike Jesus to refrain from a deeper explanation of something so critical and central to our Christian walk. Nowhere in Scripture is the Eucharistic mystery given the characterization of a symbol, and the early Church also did not treat it as symbolic in nature. The early Church Fathers also recognized the Real Presence as central in their understanding of the Eucharist. We were convinced.

Sixth, who is Mary? When my wife and I were studying in preparation to join the Catholic Church, the concept of Mary was one of the hardest ideas to get our minds around. Coming from the Evangelical tradition, most of the new concepts we learned were simply a result of a more logical and consistent interpretation of Scripture. Although the verses are clearly there, understanding Mary required something beyond Biblical interpretation, and it was not easy. Slowly, it began to make sense, and I recognized that praying to Mary was not the same as worshiping Mary. Instead, it was more along the lines of talking to a close and respected friend. When my eyes were opened to the truth of Mary, I was profoundly grateful for the opportunity to see her clearly for who she was and is today. This Catholic understanding of Mary hinges on an acceptance of her as the new Eve. Where Eve disobeyed God’s call, Mary listened attentively and obeyed in a spirit of selfless love. As Protestants we might have carelessly declared many of these Marian beliefs to be meaningless and extra-biblical concepts that have no value to Christianity. Yet, there are core beliefs all Christians share which are likewise not clearly defined in the Bible. The Trinity, for instance, is never spelled out in so many words, but its truth is made abundantly clear through a careful reading of the Bible, and the wisdom of the saints who came before us. We were learning about tradition.

In conversations with skeptical Protestants, I often explain the Catholic perspective this way. Their tradition is like an artist's canvas, which contains all the necessary artistic elements in the foreground. The background, however, lies bare of color or shape, simply white canvas awaiting the painter's brush. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is a canvas of rich and vibrant colors which seem to leap from the painting. Other Christians could be so enriched if they caught sight of the second painting and drank in its rich meaning, a perfect dovetailing of faith and reason. May God open all our friends’ eyes to this great beauty. As John Collier recently described this fullness of faith, “it was as if I had been worshiping in the basement all my life and got to move into the sanctuary.” 

Our departure from the Protestant tradition was a reflection of God’s leading hand and presence within our lives. It was less a conversion than it was enrichment and a blessing from God to see the beautiful complexity of our faith. Each spiritual step we took prepared us in some new way for our ultimate destination of the Catholic Church. As my wife and I recently sat beside my dying grandmother in a hospital room overlooking the bright tapestry of autumn colors spread out below, I was comforted by the fact that we serve the same God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Still, I am thankful to have come home to the fullness found only within the Catholic Church. I am reminded of my first confession and a mysteriously fragrant breeze. (Later, I learned that scents and gardens have long been associated with some of the most powerful conversion stories—e.g. Saint Augustine recalled being drawn to God again in the quiet solitude of his garden.) Upon exiting the confessional, this inexplicable cool breeze of a pine forest brushed by my face, and I knew that this was God’s wonderful way of welcoming me to His Church that teaches reverence and honor for God at every turn. It’s good to finally be home.

*"Thirst for Reverence" first appeared in Catholic Answers' This Rock, January 2007.